The problem of controlling the recoil action known as muzzle flip, subsequent to discharging a handgun, in order to fire successive shots in a rapid and accurate manner is well known. The recoil effect is created by two major contributing factors. The first factor is physical in nature. When a handgun is discharged, propellant gas, which pushes a projectile through the barrel, creates a high pressure jet action upon exiting the muzzle, thereby creating a rearward push on the firearm. This action is much like the thrust created by jet engines. The second major contributing factor is inherent in the actual design of handguns in general. Virtually, all semi-automatic pistols and revolvers have the axis of the barrel bore (from muzzle to breach) on a horizontal plane above the handgun grip and the axis of the grip intersects the barrel axis at a near vertical angle. Thus, a pivot point is created at the place where the axis of the barrel intersects the axis of the grip. When a handgun is discharged, the rearward force causes the muzzle end to flip upwards above the described pivot point which is at the breech end of the barrel axis.
Various attempts have been made to reduce or eliminate the recoil action in handguns. These include the use of metered ports positioned at upward angles on the barrel (U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,943--Kelly), tubular chambers (U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,895--Mazzanti), side ports (U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,264--Tarnoff et al.), compensators with symmetrical and unsymmetrical upward facing ports used in combination with an expansion chamber (U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,614--Leffel et al.), weighted compensators with upward exhaust ports receiving slotted and slidable bushings (U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,140--Rosenwald), muzzle brakes which attach to barrels at the muzzle with a combination of upward facing pressure ports and a conical expansion chamber with a strike plate having a truncated planar surface (U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,648--Blackwell et al.), anti-recoil devices which use gas pressure to move weights, surrounding the barrel and contained within a barrel extension, in a forward motion (U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,808--Strahan), muzzle brake systems which use expanded chambers and a plurality of openings on the upper portion of the barrel (U.S. Pat. No. 4,852,460--Davidson). Also, a gun leveling device which captures gases from a rifled barrel through a plurality of radially arranged passages in the barrel into a circumferential expansion chamber defined between the barrel and shroud (U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,050--Brouthers), and a device to fit on the end of a barrel as an extension, forming a chamber designed to baffle the gases with one or more apertures, which may be rearwardly inclined, and having an inner box to close the said opening and captures gases which are directed downward into the chamber (U.S. Pat. No. 4,465,697--Johnston).
Previous art examples are also found in articles titled "The Cream of the Crop--Top-Flight Comp Pistols" (Metcalf) published in "Shooting Times Magazine--October 1988" and "Wilson Super Grade" (Hopkins) published in "American Handgunner Magazine--July/August 1989". These articles depict various examples of the accepted state-of-the-art designs which include the use of muzzle weights, forward angled deflection chambers (Clark), compensators with variously designed expansion chambers combined with upward ports or openings (Nastoff, Liebenberg, Brown, Heine, McCormick, Plaxco, and Wilson), and an increasing number of compensator designs using two or more expansion chambers with upward facing ports or openings (Wilson, Hammond, Kempton, Voight, Malloy, Huening).
The purpose of a compensating device is to allow a shooter to fire a handgun quickly and accurately. Of those existing designs, a combination of problems occur: (1) Either the systems are not sufficiently efficient in reducing recoil and muzzle flip; (2) the systems disrupt high pressure gases in an expansion chamber thereby causing a substantial disturbing force behind and around the projectile potentially affecting terminal accuracy; (3) or the systems cause too much forward force on the end of the barrel of a semi-automatic handgun. The result being that the barrel remains locked-up in battery within the slide for so long, in order to reduce barrel pressures, that the slide cycle time is reduced to the point where the shooter is limited in quick follow-up shots by cycle limits of the slower slide. This problem is mitigated to some extent with the use of lighter recoil springs, but this is at the expense of reduced reliability in the functioning of the handgun, or by reducing the weight of the slide in some fashion with the net result of an increased expense.